Using the extensive information available in the two National Surveys of Families and Households, the proposed study will conduct a broad analysis of the effect of stepfamilies on the ability and willingness of families to provide resources and essential support services to members young and old. Approximately 30 percent of American children will live in a stepfamily household while they are growing up; an estimated 60 percent of Americans will have stepparents or stepchildren sometime over the life course. Can these stepfamily members be counted on to provide instrumental and social support, and more critically, does the addition of stepfamily members reduce cohesion and support between biological parents and children? Family support and cohesion are important for a variety of health and mental health outcomes at all ages, but especially for children and the elderly. Children living in stepfamilies compare poorly to those in intact families on many dimensions, including health vulnerability, emotional/behavioral disorders, and school performance. Among the specific areas in which these issues will be addressed are: developmental processes in stepfamilies; intergenerational exchange in adult stepfamilies; effect of life course transitions including home leaving, aging, divorce and widowhood on relationships with stepchildren and stepparents; how parenting and stepparenting are differentially affected by gender and marital quality. Because gender (and perhaps sex) has strong effects on parenting, gender issues will infuse all analyses, and specific attention will be addressed to the special problems of stepmother families. The hypothesis that stepfamilies have the same effect on family ties in Anglo, Latino, and African American families will be examined in all analyses. NSFH-1 oversampled stepfamilies, remarried, and cohibitors as well as racial minorities, an NSFH-2 has reinterviewed these same people plus their partners (in 1987-88 and in 1992-94) and a child aged 5-19 in the original survey. This data set provides an excellent opportunity to study a large, diverse sample of stepfamilies from a variety of points of view.